


Marinette Vs. Designing

by SailorCresselia



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, post-reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 09:50:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6149680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorCresselia/pseuds/SailorCresselia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marinette is having a rough time with her designs. Adrien is trying to help. He might be making things worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marinette Vs. Designing

“Ugggggh.”

“Marinette?”

“Uggggghhhhhh.”

“Y-you okay?”

“I’ve got nothiiinnnggg….”

Adrien was growing concerned. Marinette had been trying to come up with a new outfit ‘line’ for a week now… and now had a very battered sketchbook and a quickly growing pile of discarded ideas to show for it. It wasn’t going well.

**\--**

Alya had been trying to get Marinette to open an online boutique to sell her clothes in, which would be advertised on and partnered with The Ladyblog. After trying for a month – because since when does Alya Césaire take no for an answer – she went to the next best tactic.

Asking the boyfriend for help.

Who was also not entirely… enthused about the idea.

It’s not her fault, really. Alya had no way of knowing that she was asking Chat Noir to convince Ladybug to make merch based on Ladybug and Chat Noir, to be sold in partnership with a will-stop-at-nothing journalist who is dead set on finding out the identities of the aforementioned Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Of course, then Marinette had been out looking for materials for a personal project (a larger purse, to accommodate two mighty and powerful gods instead of one) when she saw The Travesty.

She could live with the toys and little trinkets that were made for Paris’ heroes. A lot of them were actually pretty cute, like the pins and phone charms. The antenna headbands were really tacky, but expected. But this? This would not stand.

That man was in his thirties, and he was walking out of a store, with no shame at all, carrying a Ladybug Body Pillow.

**\-- ******

That afternoon, while waiting for Marinette at a café ( _totally_ just to hang out and totally _not_ also for a surprise bonus round of “Convince The Besty”) Ms. Césaire had an unexpected visit from a certain black-clad superhero.

“Good evening, madame. I’ve heard that you’re thinking of opening a store to go with the blog you run.”

“Ye-I mean n- I mean I have been, but I can’t convince my designer friend to help, and- oh god-” Alya stammered, flustered.

_Holy shit Chat Noir is here and he **knows about the store idea** oh god!_

“I-if you and Ladybug don’t want me to, I totally get it, and I’ll drop the topic, it won’t come up again, I _promise_ ,” she continued. “You guys are the heroes, what you say goes.”

To her surprise, Chat chuckled. “Oh, no, that’s not what I’m saying. My Lady and I are definitely behind this. You have our purr-mission to go right ahead, Ms. Journalist.” With that, he winked, and pulled out his baton, extending it to meet the ground.

Alya was about to flip her lid just at that, when he looked back. “By the way, once you get it started, I’d be glad to do a video to show my support,” Chat added, shooting Alya a grin. “Welp, I’ve said my piece. Later!” And off he went, vaulting up to the rooftops of Paris, and disappearing from sight.

Alya stared after him for a moment, before yanking out her cell phone to text Marinette.

**\--**

Of course, as soon as he was out of sight of one classmate, Chat went back to being Adrien, and texted another.

**A –** Alright, I’m clear. You’re up.

_**M –** Good. I’ll wait a few minutes to keep it from looking suspicious, and then I’ll head over._

**A –** Sounds like a plan.

**A –** One thing still BUGS me though.

_**M –** Was that necessary? Was it?_

**A –** Yeah, I had to. And I’m serious.

_**M –** You REALLY didn’t, but what is it?_

**A –** Do you think they made one of those of me?

_(Marinette is typing…)_

_(Marinette is typing…)_

**A –** Well?

_(Marinette is away)_

**A –** Rude.

**\--**

And that brings us back to the present, with Adrien becoming worried that his partner-in-heroism (and girlfriend) was going to crack under her self-inflicted pressure.

“You know, it doesn’t have to be perfect right away...” He said, with what he hoped was a comforting voice as he walked over to her from the chaise he had been watching from…

And stopped mid-step as Marinette fixed him with a glare that she usually reserved for the more difficult Akuma and Chloe. (Though, since she was usually a factor towards creating the harder Akuma in the first place, the glare mostly went to Chloe.)

“And what do you know,” Marinette replied in an icy monotone, “about the designing process.”

“I know that you’ve barely left your room since you started work on this, that you’re lucky school is on break this week since you haven’t left your house at all, which also means that we’re all VERY lucky that Hawkmoth seems to be taking time off as well,” Adrien listed off, ticking off on his fingers as he went. “That working like this cannot be good for you, and please stop staring like that, you are scaring me PLAGG, TIKKI, PLEASE BACK ME UP.”

“Nah.” Plagg stuck his head up from where he was hiding behind a pillow. “You got _yourself_ into this one. I’m staying out of it.” He wasn’t even done the sentence before he was retreating to the relative safety of “Not Being In Marinette’s Line Of Sight”.

“I’m going to agree with Plagg this time...” came Tikki’s voice from somewhere above them. “This is worse than the bowler hat.”

“What, the one that I was allergic to?” He shuddered a bit, thinking back. That day had SUCKED. Feathers. Why did it have to be Feathers.

“...the bowler hat...” Marinette murmured. Plagg zipped up to join Tikki in the hopefully-advantageous high ground that was the loft.

Adrien turned pale. _Oh god, now I’ve done it. She’s going to kill me, and hide my body, and Plagg will have to find a new Chat Noir, and oh god I’m too young to die…_

“...That’s it.” Marinette smiled. “The bowler hat competition. That your father ran. I can ask him for advice.”

“She has a point!” Tikki piped up from the general vicinity of underneath Marinette’s bed. “Your dad runs a fashion company, he could offer some critique!”

Adrien winced. “Uh, maybe that’s not a good idea. I mean, he’s really busy all the time, and we wouldn’t want to bother him. Besides, you’re great! Y-you don’t need Father’s advice!”

“Why wouldn’t I? He’s a good designer, and I do still need to meet him in person anyway.”

All remaining color that Adrien had left decided that this was NOT a place it wanted to be, and took its leave. 

Seeing Adrien grow increasingly white, Marinette stared at him. The color evacuating him decided that it should side with the winning side of this debate, and immigrated to Marinette.

“Adrien. You did tell your father we’re dating, right? Right?”

_Wonder if it’s too late to write a will._

**Author's Note:**

> So, the idea that spurred this is actually coming _later_ , this is what had to come first. I'm so sorry, Adrien. Today will get worse for you before it gets better.


End file.
